remarque
808
Can someone explain to me
why, in this vintage watch (pic taken from Hodinkee), the subdials are not centered about the central axis? Given that the subdials are the same size, one first notices that the left subdial is framed by the 45 second arabic at 9 oclock, but the right subdial is pushed all the way to the tiny 1/5 sec tics, with the 15 second arabic nowhere to be found. The asymmetry is not apparent at quick glance but with a moment's reflection it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Assuming that this truly was a pocket watch movement, in which the crown would have sat at 12 oclock, the subdials would have sat at 12 and 6 and instead of being horizontally askew, the subdials would be vertically noncentered at the north-south poles.
Am I the only one who finds this layout peculiar? Maybe some historian can explain. Are there modern equivalents with asymmetrically arranged linear subdials?
Can someone explain to me
why, in this vintage watch (pic taken from Hodinkee), the subdials are not centered about the central axis? Given that the subdials are the same size, one first notices that the left subdial is framed by the 45 second arabic at 9 oclock, but the right sub...
As a matter of fact, you are correct - The pocket watches weren't symmetrical!
I did a quick search and found this article from timeandwatches , which has some scans of past Minerva watches. One of the photos show a rattrapante pocket watch, which does indeed, have the top subdial sitting slightly higher up than the lower one! (I ve...
i know nothing about chronograph movement architecture design, but it is interesting that given designers figured out how to size/configure the gear trains
so that the three axes (pinions) for the time hands and subdials were perfectly aligned, one would think that they also had a conscious reason for not having the subdial pinions symmetrically distanced from the center pinion. While it seems a bit crazy th...
